Modern communication networks are growing in size and complexity. Given the highly competitive nature of the telecommunications industry, network service providers are increasingly relying on network performance as a key differentiator for delivering communication services. As the number of subscribers (e.g., customers) increases and services evolve in sophistication, the performance of these networks can degrade, in part, from constraints of the network equipment. In many instances, the impact of network failures or even lapses in network performance can result in substantial monetary losses. Consequently, the ability to assess and improve upon network performance is a critical business component for service providers. Moreover, customers are demanding greater resiliency in the services they purchase from a service provider. There are many levels of resiliency including transport, network element and circuit resiliency. The most resilient service offers two transport connections to the customer and carries circuits on diverse elements and transport throughout the network. However, this is expensive for the service provider and the customer.
Therefore, there is a need for an approach to cost-effectively provide network resiliency, while permitting ease of network diagnosis.